MY INSTAGRAM FEED IS FULL OF PEOPLE DECLUTTERING THEIR HOMES

Tackling the kitchen drawers until something stabs red 
inside me when they get to the bookshelf chucking 
bound spines in black trash bags. Once you get rid of it all 
you can breathe, your blood pressure drops, wet-towel weight 
at your hips molds to wax, breaks in chunks at your feet 
that they’ll keep at the Louvre like the Venus. You’ll be free. 
But it doesn’t disturb me – to collect a life and a mess. 
I pull out the silk scarf I wore relentlessly five years ago 
knot it at my neck, delighted I never threw it away 
even as its crumpled fist sat in my jewelry box collecting dust. 
The kitchen table is covered with papers I can always find 
because I’ve never put them away in a house with trinket-scattered 
countertops, abandoned coffee mugs crusted with day old foam. 
For days I stare at the mildewed toilet before I clean it. 
I have always been like this and can’t have always been wrong. 
I want more. I’m not talking about stuff. I’m talking about time. 
Spending my life with an ear toward the sky. The music rattles
turquoise against the clutter creating a song. 
And it doesn’t smell like clorox. 

Haley DiRenzo is a writer, poet, and practicing attorney specializing in eviction defense. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Gone Lawn, Epistemic Literary, Eunoia Review, and Panoply, among others. She is on BlueSky at @haleydirenzo.bsky.social and lives in Colorado with her husband and dog.